Lovingkindness Meditation

Faith is sometimes not enough. We can fake it until we make it, but sometimes we just need to feel like we are not alone, but also that we are not suffering beyond belief. The simple action of prayer can help to shift the committee going on in our head, but sometimes this is not enough. There are many more tools at your disposal here,but for the time-being, what can you do to feel connected to all that is, o dial in to the reservoir of healing that is available to each and every one of us, and is our natural birthright? Have you ever felt disconnected, and then been touched by grace in the form of an angel or a miracle? Your life can be filled with these things, when you are oriented to the healing power you have within yourself.

This simple meditation can shift your inner world to being more in line with the openness and receptivity of your heart's calling. Lovingkindness generates the sensation of loving ourselves while loving others, so that we may become kind, compassionate, gentle, patient and receptive.

Lovingkindness, or metta meditation, as it is called in Buddhist practices:

1. Start by coming to a comfortable seating position, or lying down, find your breath, and allow your breath to be natural, even and relaxed. Drop inside.
2. Think of someone whose love has touched you profoundly, or that you love unconditionally. Allow the experience of this love to come over you, and rest in the sensation in your heart center.
3. Say the blessings below to yourself, inserting their name in replacement of the "I.

• May I be free from inner and outer harm and danger. May I be safe and protected.
• May I be free of mental suffering or distress.
  May I be happy.
• May I be free of physical pain and suffering.
  May I be healthy and strong.
• May I be able to live in this world happily,
  peacefully, joyfully, with ease.

4. Move to yourself. Connect with the sensation of loving kindness in your heart center, and say the blessings above (or in your own words).

5. Move to friends and family. Bless specific people, or friends and family as a whole.

6. Expand your blessings to include your city or town.

7. Expand to include your state, country, the world.

8. Notice the impact of connecting yourself to the resevoir of love has on your energy.

I like to practice lovingkindness meditation first thing in the morning, before getting out of bed. I find that it impacts the quality of my thoughts and energy throughout the day, as well as opens me up to being available to live a more prayerful life and maintain a holy state of being.

Be in Peace,

Waller